How-To Publish Games, The Tasty Minstrel Way

Tasty Minstrel Games was started in early 2009 with initial releases (Homesteaders and Terra Prime) coming out in January 2010. Despite many problems to overcome, TMG quickly grew in popularity. This blog is meant to make some of TMG's business practices open source.

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Considerations in dice game design

Posted by Michael Mindes

20 Oct 2011

Michael Mindes

(DrMayhem)

United States
Tucson
Arizona

In this blog post, I go over some important considerations regarding dice game design from a publisher's perspective. More extensively in the realm of a design aimed at the mass market, but also for a design aimed at alpha gamers.

How to design dice games.

4 Comments

Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:21 pm

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jefF, There are some who call me... DuneKitteh

(midnightmadness)

United States
Wood Dale
Illinois

Useless rollover, booya! Dune Kitty says, "deal with it."

DrMayhem wrote:

We see near randomness in every day that we live. Dice are a simplification of that randomness, and when properly utilized in a game allow us to imagine control over that randomness.

Exactly. It's really how you work it. I've always liked dice games, myself, but I think that growing up with a lot of roll and move games in the 70's and hundreds of Axis & Allies plays in the 80's taught me to love (and hate

) the bones. I came to the TMG booth at GenCon to check out Eminent Domain - I left with a copy of Martian Dice, after seeing the demo.

I really like what Alien Frontiers does with the dice - it won me over at the first play, and Troyes is at the top of my current game purchase list (was just waiting for it to become available again). I think Lords of Vegas can also fit in with these games too as an example of a game that gives you options of how to manipulate dice rolls strategically and would (does) appeal to Alphas.

Posted Thu Oct 20, 2011 7:19 pm
- Choose your Dice
  - d4
  - d6
  - d8
  - d10
  - d12
  - d20
  - d100
  - Help
  - Roll
  - Comment (Optional)
- Reply
- Quote

Kevin B. Smith

(peakhope)

United States
Margate
Florida

One social aspect of dice games that you didn't mention is when the dice are shared among all the players. Examples include Yspahan and Livingstone, where all the dice are rolled, and then players take turns drafting the ones they want. I think Troyes allows you to use someone else's dice (paying them for the privilege), which is different but similar.

Posted Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:24 pm
- Choose your Dice
  - d4
  - d6
  - d8
  - d10
  - d12
  - d20
  - d100
  - Help
  - Roll
  - Comment (Optional)
- Reply
- Quote

Michael Mindes

(DrMayhem)

United States
Tucson
Arizona

peakhope wrote:

I had planned on mentioning that, but since I did not right it down in my outline, I forgot it.

Thanks for the heads up.

Posted Fri Oct 21, 2011 5:07 pm
- Choose your Dice
  - d4
  - d6
  - d8
  - d10
  - d12
  - d20
  - d100
  - Help
  - Roll
  - Comment (Optional)
- Reply
- Quote

Brent Lloyd

(Thunder)

United States
League City
Texas

Canadian Game Design Award: http://www.fallcon.com/design

midnightmadness wrote:

I really like what Alien Frontiers does with the dice - it won me over at the first play, and Troyes....

These games are essencially Worker Placement games that use dice to limit the worker placement options.

Limiting options reduces Analysis Paralysis

Using the dice allows a designer to offer 16 Worker Placement options in the whole game and use the dice to limit those available on a turn to maybe 5 or 6 options. The designer can of course use the stastical bell curve to weight the different actions to come up more often or less often.

I am not sure yet if I am a fan of it or not.

Peace

Posted Mon Oct 24, 2011 9:42 pm
- Choose your Dice
  - d4
  - d6
  - d8
  - d10
  - d12
  - d20
  - d100
  - Help
  - Roll
  - Comment (Optional)
- Reply
- Quote

How-To Publish Games, The Tasty Minstrel Way

Considerations in dice game design

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